


Byzantine Perplexity

by Ysabetwordsmith



Series: Love Is For Children [21]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bureaucracy, Gen, Paperwork, pet peeves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 18:34:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7981852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ysabetwordsmith/pseuds/Ysabetwordsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil Coulson's pet peeve is poorly designed paperwork.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Byzantine Perplexity

**Author's Note:**

> This is the freebie for the September 6, 2016 Poetry Fishbowl, which had a theme of "pet peeves." It was inspired by Zelofheda.

What Phil Coulson hated the most  
was not bullies or hackers or even HYDRA.

It was poorly designed paperwork.

He had attempted to explain this  
with words, with numbers, with charts --  
how it cost everyone in terms of time  
and energy and money that could  
have been spent on better things --  
but he rarely made much headway.

So Coulson simply accepted  
that if he really wanted to fix  
the Byzantine perplexity  
of SHIELD's paperwork,  
he'd have to do it himself.

People often asked him  
why he bothered, and he  
would sigh and try again  
to explain that bad forms  
yielded bad information

which tended to put agents in  
the wrong place at the wrong time  
or without the necessary ammunition,  
and left people languishing in Medical  
with no care for their condition, or worse,  
care that exacerbated the problem  
instead of improving anything.

It made him anxious in a way  
that he could never quite describe,  
an eternal gnawing fear that someday,  
somehow, his assets would get hurt  
or even killed because he had failed  
to request the crucial data clearly.

So Coulson made his way through  
the maze, one bad form at a time  
clearing each level as he came to it.

He merged or separated related forms,  
changed conditionals to specific questions,  
and clarified countless instructions.

His coworkers smirked and  
called him the Red Tape Ninja,  
joking that Coulson was in love with  
his paperwork, but they never realized

how often he saved the world with it.

**Author's Note:**

> [Byzantium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantium) was not the first [bureaucracy in history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_bureaucracy_and_aristocracy), but it remains one of the most famous, its very name synonymous with arcane convolutions of procedure. Its [complex titles](http://www.hellenicaworld.com/Byzantium/LX/en/ByzantineAaristocracyAndBureaucracy.html) and [voluminous paperwork](http://www.doaks.org/resources/seals/gods-regents-on-earth-a-thousand-years-of-byzantine-imperial-seals) are remembered to this day.
> 
> [The cost of poorly designed paperwork](http://www.formulate.com.au/blog/cost-bad-forms) is ruinously high and affects everyone, even those who never have to fill it out. Consider the [design principles of effecient paperwork](http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.bfma.org/resource/resmgr/Articles/07_46.pdf). If you have any influence over your workplace's paperwork, use your power wisely. Nobody will notice you saving the day, but at the end of the day it will in fact still be saved.


End file.
